The Chronicle of Eusebius and Greek Chronographic Tradition

Alden A. Mosshammer

1979
366 pages
ISBN 0838719392

This volume offers the first treatment in English of the most influential chronicle of late inquiry. While focusing on early Greek chronology, the author provides an introduction to the critical techniques necessary for interpreting Eusebian evidence in general. The first part of the book sets out general principles for using the extant texts, for approaching the traditional dates of early Greek chronology as preserved by Eusebius, and for identifying the sources that Eusebius used. In Part 2, the author carries out detailed analysis of text, source, and tradition in thirteen case studies ranging from Lycurgus to Euripides.

From the time of its composition in the early fourth century A.D. until the Reformation period, the Chronicle of Eusebius was the standard text for world chronology from the birth of Abraham (2016 B.C.) to the Vicenalia of Constantine (A.D. 325). Its scope was universal, including biblical history and the Near Eastern kingdoms as well as the Greco-Roman world. Its format was innovative and convenient. A prefatory volume contained excerpts from earlier authors summarizing the chronological systems of all the peoples of antiquity. In the main body of the work Eusebius displayed the various systems of chronology in parallel columns of vertically numbered lists synchronized with each other and aligned with two universal standards - years since Abraham and the Alexandrian system of numbered Olympiads. Horizontally, in the middle of the page, Eusebius noted what persons and events were to be dated to the years specified in the lists. Reading from left to right across the page, the user obtained a universal synchronism at a glance.

So useful a work was early translated, adapted, epitomized, and extended. In fact, the original had been entirely supplanted by the seventh century, so that it does not have a continuous manuscript tradition of its own. In substance, however, the work was never suspended. Through secondary versions in Latin, Syriac, and Armenian, as well as Greek, the Eusebian chronology was considered definitive, not only in Europe, but also in the Near East.

Thus the Chronicle of Eusebius is more than an antique curiosity; it remains an important source of chronological evidence. One wonders, in particular, how the Greeks could possibly have established a credible absolute chronology for events that took place before there was any such thing as a date!

About the author:

Alden A. Mosshammer was born in Greenwich, Connecticut. He received his B.A. in Classics and Philosophy from Amherst College and his Ph.D. in Classics from Brown University. A member of Phi Beta Kappa and a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in 1969/70, Dr. Mosshammer has taught at Kenyon and Swarthmore Colleges and has since 1972 been a member of the department of history at the University of California, San Diego.